Teaching IELTS Students.

IELTS Essay Correction: People Sleep Less Than They Used To.

People nowadays sleep less than they used to in the past. What do you think is the reason behind this? What are the effects on individuals and the people around them?

40 minutes, 250 words at least.

Answer:

Sleeping pattern of individuals is drastically changed (1) in the past decade, and it has reduced the number of sleeping hours. There are numerous factors (2) behind this which affects the health of a person and histhe (3) relationships around him.

1. Passive voice suggests that someone has changed the sleeping pattern. It is better to write “sleeping pattern of individuals has drastically changed.”

2. It is better to MENTION the factors. (Note parallelism) This is primarily due to the proliferation of the internet and the increasing work pressures in the modern lifestyle.

3. Parallelism – affects A and B. The first words of A and B should have the same structure and belong to the same family.

It is evident that people nowadays are addicted to the internet and social media, and they use their mobile phones during night time to browse the web continuously for hours. (The idea is incomplete since you’ve not made a proper connection with the essay topic.) This has not only seriously disturbed the sleeping cycle but also drastically reduced the number of sleeping hours. For instance, according to a recent report by the United States government, (4)a personan American devotes on an average of two hours on Facebook and Instagram after 12 am. Since they are supposed to reach office at 8 am everyday, they sleep for six hours only. About half a century ago, an American slept for more than seven hours.(5) Moreover, the workload of an individual has increased due to the(a meteoric) rise in competition in the market. To outgrow others, everyone wants to utilize the night time by doing productive tasks. For example, a recent report shows that most of the IT engineers work 18 hours a day to meet their project deadlines, resulting in the reduction of sleeping hours.Earlier they did not have such extreme pressures and they used to sleep sufficiently. (Develop comparison with the past.)

4. A country can’t publish a report. An agency can.

5. The example is not strong. It must reflect the question statement – People nowadays sleep less than they used to in the past. I can’t see a comparison.

The above paragraph is weak on task response.

Above reasons(6)behind the decrease in the number of sleeping hours havehas detrimental effects on the people. Firstly, working till late midnight harms the physical and mental health of an individual both physically and mentally. Studies show that a minimum of seven hours of sleep in a day is required for optimum health. For instance, Japan health minister stated that 70 percent of patients of depression are affected (by what? Let us make this active. – 7) because of the lack of sleep. Secondly, people who sleep less than the required time feelsfeel constantly annoyed which changes their relationship with family and friends. They keep overthinking about their work, or they are involved in other tasks which make them lose their precious sleeping time.(This sentence should explain “feel annoyed”.) Not sleeping enough leads to loss of patience and the person gets irritated on minor issues. This makes relationships sour and breaks friendships.

6. REASONS can’t have detrimental effects. Lack of sleeping can have.

7. Active voice: For instance, the Japanese Ministry of Health has stated that sleeping for less than five hours leads of depression and this affects more than 70 percent of all depression patients.

There is ample scope to improve task response by developing the arguments properly.

To recapitulate, due to social media addiction and consistent pressure of growth, people are affected significantly, resulting in the reduction of sleep.